Commodore is back! If you’re not familiar with the name, it’s the brand that started the personal computer revolution back in the 80’s. The most popular computer back then was the Commodore 64 and the company was proud to have shipped thousands of units everyday. Business was good, what with the company selling almost 17 million units and was once named as the biggest selling computer ever by Guinness. But fate was not as kind to Commodore and so in 1994, the company faced bankruptcy.
The brand underwent several trademark and ownership changes over the past decades. We haven’t heard much about it but the Commodore brand seems to be making a comeback via a smartphone developed by some Italian guys. A certain PET smartphone is bearing the name Commodore. It can simply be a namesake but the familiar logo is there.
It may be hard to believe but based on the photo, it looks like a legit Commodore PET phone. If you may remember, the PET which was launched in 1977 was soon followed up by the Commodore 64. When it went bankrupt in the 90’s, an unnamed buyer purchased Commodore’s assets. A federal court recently ruled that the trademark belong to a Dutch company known as Commodore Holdings. Meanwhile, Italian entrepreneurs Carlo Scattolini and Massimo Canigiani registered the name Commodore Business Machines Limited in the United Kingdom and they said they already have the rights for the trademark and brand. To make the long story short, the two Italians tried to bring Commodore brand to life by working on an Android phone.
Known this early as the Commodore PET phone, this looks like any other Android smartphone. According to Wired, it features a 5.5-inch IPS screen, 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution, Gorilla Glass 3, 1.7GHz Mediatek 64-bit octa core processor, ARM Mali T760 GPU, 13MP camera with Sony sensor, f/2.0 aperture, 8MP front-facing cam, dual SIM support, 4G connectivity, and a 3000 mAh battery. The phone runs Android 5.0 Lollipop but it includes a couple of emulators so you can play various Amiga and C64 games. (How cool is that?)
We have no information on exact pricing but a website for the Commodore phone is already up and we heard it will be unveiled this week prior to the release in Poland, Germany, and France. According to Wired’s Maurizio Pesce of Wired, he was able to test a prototype. He also said the phone might come in two variants: a regular one with 3GB RAM and a 32GB storage and the light version with 2GB RAM and 16GB RAM. Colors available include blue, green, beige, white, and black.
But wait, don’t get too excited.
Interestingly, Android Police has a contrasting idea. The website said this story isn’t true because there’s still the problem surrounding the Commodore trademark. Because of the bankruptcy issue, there was a time that a company named as Asiarim Corp got a hold of the trademark in 2011. Unfortunately, control was lost so creditors were believed to have gotten control of the trademarks.
Asiarim used the brand illegally even if it’s already owned by the creditors. It’s quite a crazy story but the main point is, not one company can really use the trademark—at least not yet. This phone that we see could be a fake or just a render. It could be a real phone with the Commodore logo but could also be ILLEGAL.
So this post is way more confusing now. Wired could have made the conclusions early but there’s also a possibility that someone is indeed cooking up a Commodore smartphone in secret. Then again, the writer couldn’t just be making up those information after he claimed he met with the guys behind the phone and even tried a prototype. We’ll never know for sure but for now let’s start searching for related information about what really happened to Commodore.
What do you think of this Commodore smartphone issue? Your guess is as good as mine.
VIA: Wired, Android Police
SOURCE: Commodore
Ah, the old Commodore days.